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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BlackRockShooter_4164.jpg

Please place media-specific tropes on their respective pages. Black★Rock Shooter might refer to:

All of them star unrelated incarnations of the eponymous character.

Not related to Blackrock Mountain.

Originally, Black★Rock Shooter was a character (she's the girl to the right with the black bikini and long twin tails) created by an artist known as huke, among plenty of other material that he uploaded to his Pixiv profile. One fateful day ryo, leader of Vocaloid synthesizer band Supercell, approached huke to create a song after having been inspired by his work, while also inviting him to join the creative team of the band. This way, the two collaborated on a music video, with huke making some small adjustments to Black★Rock Shooter's design and creating the version known today. Once uploaded on Nico Nico Douga in 2008, and soon after on YouTube, both the song (performed by Hatsune Miku) and character became a massive success (on the Internet anyway), and in 2009 it was announced that an anime would be made based on an original story created by huke.

Aside from B★RS, huke has created plenty of other characters in that same universe, including her scythe-wielding, green eyed, horned and winged nemesis Dead Master; a sword-wielding, red eyed, horned girl called Black★Gold Saw (who appears at the beginning of the OVA); a cute looking girl, sporting an eye patch, headphones, and wielding a massive Gunblade as tall as she is, known as Black★Matagi and, finally, a bespectacled and katana wielding girl, called Black★Devil Girl. Oh, and in case you’re wondering the names of B★RS's weapons, the katana is "black blade" and the massive arm cannon is "★rock cannon".

The franchise was dormant between 2012 and 2022, though with a few hints that the series would make a comeback in the future.

There's also a fanmade Tabletop Gaming system, Black Rock Universe; currently in its playable Alpha stage - they have an IRC chan on Rizon, #BlackRockUniverse. While it was officially abandoned, the authors have decided to pull it together and finish it off since it keeps coming up - stop by and chat or help out if you can.

Acronym Nickname Guide:

  • Black★Rock Shooter: (B★RS)
  • White★Rock Shooter: (W★RS)
  • Insane Black★Rock Shooter: (IB★RS)
  • Dead Master: (DM)
  • Black★Gold Saw: (B★GS)
  • Black★Matagi: (B★M)
  • Black★Devil Girl: (B★DG)
  • Strength: (STR)

This franchise provides examples of:

  • Adaptation Expansion: And how. From a drawing of a girl to a Vocaloid song to a 5 minute PV to a 50 minute OVA with backstory and names and, meanwhile, an RPG game, then a manga, then a companion anime series to the OVA.
  • Alternate Continuity: All adaptations take place in their own universe, with only the character patterns and general personality being constants.
  • Astral Checkerboard Decor: Almost all of huke's drawings take place in some checkerboard landscape.
  • In Name Only: An interesting case with the adaptations in that there's so little information provided about anything in the original PV that the interpretations become widely diverged from each other.
  • Lucky Charms Title: Just look at how often the black star appears in this page!
    • This is taken to its logical conclusion in Project Diva F, where the last note is always a Star Note in the middle of the screen, in the exact same spot as a white star appears on the video itself.
  • Reused Character Design: A majority of the main characters of each Alternate Continuity have their designs based on the characters of huke's illustrations. Although, they also undergo some Art Evolution or aesthetic changes. Ever wondered why Stella and Rock look exactly like Black★Rock Shooter, or why Empress looks so painfully similar?
  • Secondary Adaptation: This franchise began as a series of drawings by artist ryoheihuke that depicts a skinny girl with rugged ponytails, Badass Longcoat and BFG, and many other related characters. Then it gets popular when Vocaloid Miku Hatsune sings a song about BRS, composed by Supercell. BRS then gets made into an anime, an unrelated manga and an unrelated video game.
  • Universal-Adaptor Cast: The main cast tend to be treated this way; see Alternate Continuity.

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